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its good to see we have 12 year olds in control of newspapers in some countries.
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CNN) -- An Iranian newspaper says it is going to hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West will apply the same principles of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide against Jews as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, The Associated Press reports.
The newspaper, called Hamshahri, said the contest would be launched on February 13 and would be co-convened by itself and the House of Caricatures, a Tehran exhibition center for cartoons.
The competition is in response to the publication, mainly in European newspapers, of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, something which is forbidden under Muslim belief.
Both the paper and the cartoon center are owned by the Tehran Municipality, which is dominated by allies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is well known for his opposition to Israel, AP reports.
Last year Ahmadinejad provoked outcries when he said on separate occasions that Israel should be \"wiped out\" and the Holocaust was a \"myth.\"
Hamshahri invited foreign cartoonists to enter the competition and said it wanted to see how open the West was to caricatures of the Holocaust.
\"Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?\" Hamshahri wrote, referring to the Prophet Mohammed cartoons, in a short article on its back page.
The Iranian newspaper's plans come as violence sparked by the cartoons shows little sign of abating, with Afghan police killing four protesters on Tuesday.
Tuesday's protests -- from Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Europe -- came as political leaders urged restraint and struggled to contain the backlash, some of which has turned from peaceful to volatile and deadly.
In Iran, which is locked in a nuclear stand-off with the West and has cut trade ties with Denmark where the cartoons were first published, crowds pelted the Danish Embassy in Tehran with petrol bombs and stones for a second day.
Also in Tehran, protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the Norwegian Embassy, breaking several windows, a witness told CNN.
Ole Kristian Holthe, the Norwegian ambassador to Iran, said he had gotten word that about 100 demonstrators had gathered in front of the embassy, as were 100 police officers.
\"At least one petrol bomb was thrown against the embassy,\" he told CNN in a phone interview from Tehran.
The embassy was closed Tuesday due to the protests all over the Middle East, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian foreign ministry said, and all embassy personnel are safe.
Meanwhile, the United Nations evacuated staff and NATO peacekeepers rushed reinforcements to a northwest Afghan town after deadly fighting erupted during a protest against the cartoons, The Associated Press reported.
Denmark's prime minister on Tuesday described the protests as a global crisis and called for calm.
\"We are now facing a growing global crisis,\" Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a news conference. \"Now it has become an international political matter,\" he said. \"I urge calm and steadiness.
\"Denmark and the Danish people are not enemies of Islam or any other religion. We believe in freedom of expression, we believe in freedom of religion and we respect all religions,\" he said.
\"We believe in dialogue between cultures and we oppose violence and hatred and we believe in equal rights for everyone.\"
Nordic countries are bearing the brunt of the protests in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States was offering help to many Danish embassies.
\"One thing that we are going to do is go out to our embassies around the globe and ask them to offer any assistance to the Danish government, the Danish embassies, representatives in countries where they have representation, see if they need any assistance,\" he said.
Tuesday's rioting in the remote town of Maymana was one of about a half-dozen flashpoints that erupted across Afghanistan. Reuters said four people were killed.
Four protesters were killed on Monday and 17 others injured in protests near Bagram Airbase, a U.S. base north of Kabul, and separately in the Afghan city of Mihtarlam, according to AP. (Watch as police and rioters clash -- 2:25)
Also Monday, a stampede during a protest in the east African nation of Somalia killed a teenager, AP reported. (Full story)
Further protests erupted Tuesday in Egypt, Yemen, Djibouti, Gaza and Azerbaijan, while Croatia became the latest country where a newspaper printed the cartoons.
At least 10,000 people marched in the Bangladeshi capital and tens of thousands turned out in Niger's capital Niamey in sub-Saharan Africa to vent their anger about the cartoons.
On Tuesday, in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar, more than 6,000 people demonstrated, chanting slogans against European nations and demanding justice, police said.
The protest was led by the Chief Minister of North West Frontier Province, Mohammad Akram Khan Durani, and several other provincial ministers.
\"Hang the man who insulted the prophet,\" some Pakistani protesters shouted.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has issued a statement condemning the publication of the cartoons and expressing concern about controversy.
In Srinagar in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police fired tear gas Tuesday to disperse hundreds of Shiite Muslim protesters. At least six protesters and two police officers were injured, police told AP.
In the southern Philippines, hundreds of Muslims burned a Danish flag.
And in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, rallies were held in at least four cities Tuesday. Rock-throwing demonstrators have attacked Denmark's diplomatic missions in the sprawling country on a near daily basis.
\"The Foreign Ministry recommends that Danes already in Indonesia leave and that those interested in coming postpone their plans,\" said Niels Erik Anderson, Denmark's ambassador to Indonesia.
Malaysia's prime minister slammed the foreign media and a local daily on Tuesday for running the drawings, one of which shows Mohammed wearing a turban shaped as a bomb.
Iran said it was cutting off all trade with Denmark, and Tehran withdrew its ambassador to Denmark in response. (Full story)
Demonstrators in the Iranian capital protested outside the Danish Consulate and the Austrian Embassy, tossing Molotov cocktails at the buildings. Austria currently serves as president of the European Union. (Full story)
On Tuesday, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the West's publication of the cartoons was an Israeli conspiracy motivated by anger over Hamas' win in the Palestinian elections, AP reported.
Arrest warrants
The cartoons of Mohammed first appeared in Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in September. The paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw the pictures because the media was censoring itself over Muslim issues.
Islam forbids depictions of Mohammed and many Muslims were furious at the drawings, one of which shows the religious figure wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.
Some other European papers later published some of the cartoons, as a way of covering the controversy and also, some papers said, as a matter of freedom of expression.
Two New Zealand newspapers also reprinted the cartoons, sparking protests in that country and drawing condemnation from the government.
In Paris, France Soir -- a newspaper that published the cartoons -- was evacuated for nearly three hours Monday after receiving a bomb threat.
Two small weekly Jordanian newspapers also reprinted the cartoons and, according to Jordan's Petra News Agency, arrest warrants were issued for the editors-in-chief.
The Danish paper issued an apology in late January after weeks of quieter expressions of outrage and diplomatic efforts to avoid the widespread violence.
The Danish government says it does not control what is in the country's newspapers and that courts will determine whether the newspaper that originally published the cartoons is guilty of blasphemy.
The government has also expressed apologies for the offending drawings. (Danes feel threatened)
CNN has chosen to not show the cartoons out of respect for Islam.
-- CNN Producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi and Journalist Tom Coghlan contributed to this report |
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